Social Data 101: Simple Techniques Anyone Can Master

Social media data can help us better understand our customers—so why don’t we use more of it?

Everyone has heard about big data and how rockstar companies like Amazon and eBay use data to better target customers.

But for most companies, this level of sophistication remains out of reach.

As many marketers know, it’s really hard to find insights. “Everybody talks about big data,” says Scott Monty, executive vice president of strategy at SHIFT Communications and Ford Motors’ former global digital and multimedia communications manager. “But what most companies need at this point are small insights.”

How to use social data to better understand your customer’s frustrations

In this post, I’ll use a fictional dog training company to illustrate these techniques. This gives us a lot of data to analyze (people love talking about dogs online) AND gives me a chance to sneak a picture of my dog Watson into a blog post (finally!).

So let’s say you work at a large company that sells dog training products.

You have a new dog training video course that you plan to sell on social media.

But right now, your landing pages, social ads, and content are not connecting with dog owners.

How could social media data help you better understand customers and craft more compelling marketing messages?

1. Use these techniques to find humans, not spam

A key challenge with social media data is the volume of spam and sales messages on social channels.

2. Pinpoint customer frustrations with product reviews

One of the best ways to get inside the minds of customers is to read product reviews. By using this search operator—!Amazon + Your Keyword— in DuckDuckGo you can tap into Amazon’s rich search engine. It also works for eBay and YouTube.

Go to DuckDuckGo and enter this search: !Amazon + Keyword.

Example: !Amazon + dog training or !eBay + dog training.

Now, you can quickly read product reviews and swipe real customer language to use in Tweets, emails, landing pages, and blog posts.

A quick review of Amazon reviews for “dog training” shows that people wished one popular book had more specific steps rather than abstract theory.

Mirror this customer language on landing pages and social content—for example, you could talk about how most dog training products focus too much on theory, rather than giving specific ways to leash train and other step-by-step instructions for new dog owners.

3. Reddit is a goldmine for consumer insights

I find Reddit is incredibly useful for uncovering true conversations about brands and products. Companies and spam accounts are kicked out the front door if they try to game the community with fake discussions.

4. Book time in your calendar to listen

Once you’ve found the phrases and topics you want to monitor, build a listening dashboard. I recommend booking an hour in your calendar every week to observe customers in their natural habitat. What are they sharing? What do they love or hate? What’s their daily life like?

There’re lots of different ways to build a listening dashboard.

You can use a solution such as Hootsuite Analytics. Or manually pull mentions and data into a spreadsheet.

I also have my Hootsuite dashboard configured with search streams for different terms and customer social profiles.

Here’s how to build a listening dashboard for your customer personas.

Make a list of 10-15 social media users that represent your ideal customer. These are real people that you follow and study on social media.

Our ideal customer: Sarah

How to position: don’t focus on tricks. Instead, focus on training as a way to restore her damaged relationship with her dog.

Twitter is a common place where dog owners complain (invest in Twitter ads?)

Reddit is a popular place where owners seem to go to ask peers for advice. Could we partner with a famous dog trainer to do a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) about dog training? We could co-brand our product with the influencer so that the promotion fits into Reddit’s strict community policies.

More simple ways to use social media data

In our Social Media Data Cookbook, you’ll find more simple ways to use social media data. The SEO cluster recipe for increasing website traffic is one of my favorites.

The Cookbook shows you:

The No. 1 persuasive way to prove impact of your social media campaigns

About the Author

James is a senior copywriter and content strategist on Hootsuite's brand team. Before Hootsuite, he worked at a few ad agencies creating B2B campaigns for Google, Intuit, Thomson Reuters, AppLovin (a mobile ad company acquired for 1.2 billion), and Wealthfront. James enjoys B2B content marketing, the refreshing taste of Wolf Cola, and writing music.